I finished playing Prince of Persia – Warrior Within about a day and a half after starting it (of course with all cheats I could find in the net hehehe)

The story is astounding. Sands of Time really hit the spot, and amazingly Warrior Within was able to continue that storyline and bring it to a whole new level. I’ll talk about that in detail at the end, since there are bound to be spoilers. Meanwhile…

I watched the bonus features of the game, and it had a TechTV segment/article on the whole POP series which had so much trivia involved. It was really fun to watch.

I found out that the creator of POP, Jordan Mechner, was the same creator of Karateka, (remember that game?) and that while Warrior Within is considered as POP2, there have been so many “versions” of the franchise.

1. Prince of Persia – Released by Broderbund (yes the makers of PrintShop)
2. Prince of Persia 2 – After which, Mechner took a break from gaming and pursued film
3. Prince of Persia 3D – Mechner was not involved in this project at all, so it was never considered to be a part of the “franchise”
4. Prince of Persia The Sands of Time – Ubisoft acquired the license and got the Mechner on board to revive it. This is also where I found out that Ubisoft was actually a french company.
5. Prince of Persia 2 Warrior Within

Also, in the article, it mentions that Jerry Brockheimer is interested in making a feature film, with mechner himself as one of the writers. I mention Mechner with such regard because if you watch the article, you’ll know POP thrived because of the story he created… for both Sands of Time and Warrior Within. The idea of the movie excites me. I hope it doesn’t become something like Resident Evil or Alone in the Dark, which I hear sucked in the box-office arena. Having the creator as part of the story writing process may seem to have promise, considering his work so far.

Now here’s the story as I’ve understood it. It’s quite long so you don’t have to read it if you’re not interested, but the plot is very clever. Before that though, let’s have a little primer to start off (taken from a website):

Introduction

According to the story’s timeline, the Prince never really got a break after the last game. When the Prince unleashed the Sands of Time (in the game The Sands of Time), he was destined to die. However, he managed to escape his fate in the first and remained alive as the credits rolled. Fate does not like to be messed with though, so it sends out its workhorse, the Dahaka (which is a real mythical Persian demon of destruction). It cannot be killed, and it’s dead set on killing the prince, which it considers to be a “glitch” in the continuum. You start the game seeing a cutscene of the Prince running through the streets of Babylon being chased by a black cloud of tendrils and smoke. When you reach a dead end, all you see is the black cloud closing in on the Prince, and the Prince drawing his swords.

As it turns out, the Prince finds his old mentor in Babylon, and this wise man tends to know a lot of things. He informs the Prince of the Island of Time, home to where the Sands of Time were created, and where the Empress of Time lives. The Prince believes that if he goes into the Past of the Island of Time, he can change his fate again. If he stops the Sands from ever being created, then the Maharajah (in the game The Sands of Time) will never be able to steal them, which is how he himself found the Sands of Time. So this starts out the Prince’s big adventure

Into the game

Now that’s out of the way, the first part was to find the empress and prevent her from creating the sands of time… Along the way, you meet a strange figure that seems to be getting in your way all the time, that figure is eventually devoured by the Dahaka when the three of you meet in the same place at one point.

Anyways, you supposedly achieve your goal by killing the empress of time… and return to the present – yet the Dahaka still comes after you!

You realize that you’ve killed the empress in the past… and have completed the sands of time yourself (apparently the empress’ physical body itself was integral to the creation of the sands… I think the game stated it as so just for the convenience of the plot) In addition to that, by killing the empress, you made sure that you were the one to mess up the timeline in the future by allowing yourself to create it, and ultimately, use it (in the previous game). Still with me?

Cannot escape fate

But while you were mulling over this, you see some hieroglyphics on the wall, which apparently you wrote [while you were] in the past. The writing talks about The Mask of the Wraith, which has given you the impossible – a second chance to change your fate. So you go find the mask, in the hopes you can prevent your mistake of killing the empress in the past. You think that if she lives, the sands will be completed, but if she dies in the past, you will complete it – so you decide to kill her in the present.

You finally get the mask and, to your horror, you become that strange figure you’ve been seeing earlier on. Now how the “past you” ever got wind of the mask (for you to be able to write your story about it on the walls) is another thing the game developers decided to leave out for convenience.

A second chance

This is where the game becomes really interesting. As you make your way back to the throne room to undo and do whatever you think appropriate, you pass the different levels again in the point of view of the sand-wraith (that’s what are now by the way) and so all those cutscenes in the game where you saw the strange figure were happening all over again, only in a different point of view… sort of like in Harry Potter’s Askaban movie.

Since you’re the sand-wraith now, you have the liberty of changing your fate if you wish to, thats why at the scene where you (wraith), your old self, and the Dahaka meet face to face, instead of you (wraith) dying… you let the Dahaka take your old self.

Now more trivia about the mask, it is rather a convenient artifact to have around as it justifies any paradox that may arise from everything that you do as the sand-wraith, and the only paradox left is how you found the damn thing.

The whole storyline up to when you killed the empress actually has no (or at least negligible) temporal paradox(es). If you had killed the empress or not, the sands would still have been created by her hand, or yours – which in turn allowed the events that transpired in the previous game – which in turn allowed the storyline in this game thus far. There is no escape. But of course now, you have the mask, hehehehe – and are now “detached” from the plane of “fate.” You then start molding your own new destiny by allowing your old self to be killed instead of your “wraith self.”

A new destiny?

You now become your old self again (non-wraith) since your old “old-self” is gone (again, the convenience of the mask). And face the empress once more without her knowing that you are now a wiser you. You eventually are able to drag her to the present and kill her there – ergo the sands are not created, ergo you’re free. The Dahaka still appears, but this time it takes the empress’ body (which is the new “glitch” in the continuum, as she shouldn’t be there) and takes your amulet, the last remaining instance of the sands.

The game ends on a sad note since you go home a free man, but return to a warzone, saying something like “what have I done?” This pertains to how a man cannot escape his fate… but obviously the game cannot possibly hint on what might’ve caused any of these new developments… so it’s open for another game, or a movie perhaps hehehe.

alternate ending

There’s actually an alternate ending… better but also wierdder, as even discussion boards in the net are trying to figure out what exactly was happening in the alternate ending.

Anyways it is available when you are able to get certain life-upgrades during the game (all of them in fact). There will be a water sword, which can defeat the Dahaka. By the way, water seems to be the Dahaka’s Kryptonite… a plot device IMHO, so no need to explain why it was vulnerable to it.

So if you get the water sword… you still play the game the same way untilthe end like you used to… but after you get the empress into the present, instead of fighting her, the Dahaka appears and is now after her naturally (since you’re in the present with the intention to kill her there, so you’re still essentially following the normal way of finishing things).

Anyways you then save her by attacking the Dahaka and defeating it. You then return with the empress to your homeland. Though you come home to a similar warzone as in the first ending, but with more detail (perhaps it’s a different situation altogether)… weird details to be precise, But as I said, it leaves so much to the imagination… and a lot to look forward to from the next release of the game (or movie).